Beware…
I love learning new words, and came across a really relevant one today.
According to a report in The Guardian*, "the British middle class is in freefall, its young people pushed into precarity."
PRECARITY: noun
● a state of existence in which material provision and psychological wellness are adversely affected by a lack of regular or secure income.
So it turns out there is a single word for the life the average Nigerian - young and old - has deliberately and needlessly been plunged into over the last sixty years.
I personally would have gone with something a little less polished. But I guess those nine letters work as a suitable amalgamation of incalculable theft, unfathomable neglect, and mindless murder.
Freefall? As opposed to being pushed over a precipice into the abyss that currently engulfs us? I think perhaps Nigeria went past the "this could be bad" stage to the "this is the stuff of nightmares" some time ago, and therefore wins hands down.
The amount of innocent blood shed in the last few weeks doesn't bear thinking about.
At the always infamous Lekki toll gate.
In hitherto quiet rice fields in Zabarmari.
And now in yet another secondary school - this time in Kankara.
Not to talk of the unnoticed, unrecorded before, in-between, and most definitely afterwards; a litany of violent kidnappings, nefarious rapes, deadly road accidents, and vicious assaults.
This lacklustre and dehumanising life once dignified people are forced to live is the work - or, lack of it! - of dictators, autocrats, despots, tyrants...you choose. Their titles may differ, though their destructive purpose remains the same.
Nonetheless, their unintentional end-game is ignominy.
Our blood may be shed.
But never ever in vain, because God sees, hears and acts. The Bible is very clear about this.
"He tracks down killers and avenges bloodshed, but he will never forget the ones forgotten by others, hearing every one of their cries for justice." (Psalms 9:12 TPT)
From Ahab & Jezebel to Herod the Great; justice has been final - and as swift as God needs it to be for His plans and purposes to be fulfilled.
But back to earthly affairs in the here and now!
Whether we're talking Caveat Emptor or Caveat Venditor, or coming up with the sort of hybrid interpretation we Naijas are famous for, I would like to proffer that truer Latin words were never spoken when it comes to governments and citizens.
As a politician, be careful what you buy into in the pursuit of power, wealth and fame. Likewise, think long and hard before you sell empty promises to people who have no hope and therefore nothing to lose.
As a voter, be extra careful of the lies you buy into in pursuit of a comfortable life which usually turns out to be anything but - sometimes selling your soul in the process.
Therefore, as we alternately mourn and rail against the system; as we pray for better times and treatment even whilst we seek to hold a wanton regime to account; let's take stock and the necessary steps to make sure we get it right next time. If we don't, we might find out just how bottomless the pit is.
*Jones, Owen, "The British middle class is in freefall, its young people pushed into precarity." The Guardian, 12 December 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/dec/12/
#Matthew2:1-18
#1Kings16-22